She put down her camera and signed up to fight for Ukraine driven by the outrage over Russia's invasion of her home and memories of a sexual assault she survived during fighting with Moscow-backed separatists eight years ago. After making her first feature documentary Sister Zo in her final year at university, Alisa made her feature debut Alisa in Warland about the war in eastern Ukraine, which premiered at IDFA in Amsterdam in 2015 as part of the First Appearance competition. Alisa's second documentary film, Home Games, had its world premiere at Sheffield Doc/Fest and was nominated at sixty-five festivals (8 awards). Home Games was also nominated for Best Ukrainian Documentary of 2019 by the Ukrainian Film Academy. In 2019, Alisa Kovalenko became a member of the European Film Academy (EFA).